Asheninka: a Syllable Parser

FAQ

What operating systems does Asheninka run on?

Why is it called an Alpha version?

Many of the intended features for it are still not implemented.

Why is it called Asheninka?

This syllable parsing program is called Asheninka (pronounced a SHEN in ka) for historic reasons.

In late 1983 the developer was living in the jungles of Peru and David Payne
came and asked him if he would create a Consistent Changes table for him that
would insert discretionary hyphens in Asheninka text.

The algorithm Dr. Payne suggested was the CV Patterns approach. Asheninka has long words and typesetting material in that language would improve readability with such a table. In 1984 the developer wrote such a table. While it was functional, it ran slowly. He then wrote the Hyphen program (see Black et al. 1987) to improve the efficiency. It implemented the same basic approach. Amazingly, the Hyphen program is still being used (albeit occasionally) today.

Because of this beginning, the developer chose to call this tool Asheninka. The program
icon is the kind of material used for clothing by Asheninka people.

I downloaded the installer, but it complained about 32 bits or 64 bits. What does this mean?

Personal computers these days tend to have processors that are either 32 bit (older ones) or 64 bit (newer ones). There are separate versions of the Asheninka installers for 32 bit and 64 bit versions of Windows and Linux (currently the developer only has access to a 32 bit Mac, so its installer is 32 bit; it works fine on 64 bit Macs).
If you get a message while installing, try using the other version for your computer.